Machines

You'd be hard pressed to find a company that talks more about its "people-centric" management culture than Barry-Wehmiller, a privately owned manufacturer of industrial equipment. Barry-Wehmiller, which has $1.5 billion in annual sales, says it's all about fostering "personal growth" among its 7,000 employees, whom it calls "team members. " Its "Guiding Principles of Leadership" include the imperative to "treat people superbly and compensate them fairly. " (Italics are theirs.)

A resourcefully stylish indie sci-fi entry from Britain, "The Machine" drapes sleek visuals over an artificial intelligence tale set in a top-secret British government facility where robots are being developed to fight a cold war with China. Empathic computer genius Vincent (Toby Stephens) has more on his mind, however, than creating a weapon-strength, self-aware being for his military boss (Denis Lawson). Vincent imagines a revolutionary future in which the brain-damaged (be they wounded soldiers or his medically afflicted daughter)

All aerobic fitness machines help you elevate your heart rate and work up a good sweat. But the cardio contraptions reviewed here are designed to do that and more, offering great general fitness benefits while helping you to take your specific sport to a new level. If you ski, cycle, row or run, these products are designed to develop the specific muscles, coordination, skills, endurance and protection that'll allow you to raise your game. Set for the slopes SkiXtreme: A simple, minimalist ski simulator designed by Ohio contractor and ski enthusiast John Scimone that is made of two pivoting foot platforms connected to a frame through several resistance springs.

A former junior college police officer pleaded guilty to stealing more than $250,000 from campus parking machines at a Northern California campus. Jeffrey Holzworth, 52, pleaded guilty to one count of grand theft and 11 counts of receiving stolen property after prosecutors alleged he had been stealing coins and currency at Santa Rosa Junior College during the final seven years of a 28-year law-enforcement career, according to the Press Democrat . The veteran college police officer came under suspicion when his colleagues reported seeing him with bundles of $1 and $5 bills, as well as collecting money from the machines at odd hours, the newspaper reported.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Siripong Khwanthong sidles up to a lottery seller along a crowded street near Bangkok's Patpong pleasure district, studies the selection and settles on a ticket ending in 37. "The number just came to me," he says. "Maybe I'll be lucky tomorrow. " If the government has its way, Siripong soon will be buying lottery tickets from machines. And that's fine with him: Not only would it be more convenient, but it also could save money by cutting out the surcharge that street vendors command selling "lucky" numbers, which can add as much as 50% to the $2.70 ticket price.

UCLA is among the first schools to offer recruits the option of signing their letter of intent on Wednesday electronically instead of sending in via a fax machine. Recruits will be able to sign and fill out documents via computer or mobile device using SignNow by Barracuda. "The technology provides accurate time stamps and ensures that we receive the signed contracts as soon as they are executed," said Matt Elliott, UCLA's associate athletic director for compliance. Now, instead of worrying about not having paper in a fax machine, schools will have to worry about hackers.

Your prayers have been answered: Finally, Angelenos can drop hundreds of dollars at vending machines in local malls for a single ounce of caviar. Admit it, Black Friday isn't even over and you've already broken down the door at Urban Outfitters and spent your mortgage payment on door-buster deals. So what's another few bucks or 400 for an ounce of Royal River Beluga caviar? Beverly Hills Caviar is stocking the vending machines at Burbank Town Center, Topanga Westfield Mall and Century City Mall with fish eggs as well as truffles, escargot, oils, gourmet salts and gift boxes ( hat tip to the Eater blog )

The tinted windows at Cafe Miss Cutie in Garden Grove are a giveaway that this isn't your ordinary coffeehouse. At about 20 tables, men play cards and smoke, tossing cigarette butts onto the wood floor seconds before lighting up again. High-pitched pop music pulsates as waitresses dressed in sexy lingerie — and sometimes less — deliver the brew the customers crave: Vietnamese coffee, strong and sweet, in a small glass topped with whipped cream. The cafe is one of about 20 in this Orange County city, which includes part of Little Saigon, one of the largest Vietnamese American enclaves in the U.S. It also is among those raided in March by more than 150 federal and local law enforcement officials, exposing an underbelly of what police say includes nudity, gambling and prostitution.

Now that Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and other sugary soda producers are planning to list health information on vending machines, calorie counts aren't just for the likes of McDonald's and fast food joints. In full view of consumers, the machines will have a “Calories Count” display alongside messages such as “Check Then Choose” and “Try a Low-Calorie Beverage,” according to the American Beverage Assn. trade group. Labels listing the number of calories per container will be affixed to selection buttons.

Proposed legislation to remove junk food and sugar-loaded drinks from vending machines at California state office buildings and on government property is intensifying debate about when the battle against obesity becomes a gateway to "nanny state" tactics. Backers of the Assembly bill, AB 459, said California shouldn't condone the sale of fatty snacks and sodas in the workplace when taxpayers are already shelling out vast amounts to cover the healthcare costs of overweight government employees.

April 3, 2014 | By E. Scott Reckard, This article has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

Sounding alarm over an especially sinister new wave of cybercrime, regulators are warning bankers that hackers have succeeded in changing the controls on automated teller machines to allow thieves to make nearly unlimited withdrawals. The hackers often schedule the withdrawals for holidays and weekends, when extra dollars are loaded into ATMs and monitoring by the banks drops off, an umbrella group for financial regulators said Wednesday. The U.S. Secret Service is calling the scam Unlimited Operations because it circumvents the usual caps on ATM withdrawals, enabling the criminals at times to extract far more than depositors have in their accounts.

SACRAMENTO - Millions of dollars in welfare benefits are ending up in banks' pockets each year when poor Californians access their taxpayer-funded benefits, according to state statistics and a report released Tuesday. Like many other states, California issues electronic cards to welfare recipients so they can withdraw public assistance from ATMs. Last year, $18.9 million was spent on ATM fees. The year before they topped $19.4 million. The state welfare system allows recipients to make four free withdrawals per month at ATMs run by MoneyPass, part of U.S. Bank.

February 19, 2014 | By Randall Roberts, Los Angeles Times Pop Music Critic

Perhaps diehard Devo fans can untangle their best songs to identify the jerky stabs that Bob Casale (known to fans as Bob2) made with his strings and keyboard pokes, but I rarely saw the point. Whether it was Bob2, who died Tuesday at age 61, his brother Gerald Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh or his brother Bob Mothersbaugh (Bob1), who made which noise didn't matter within the tight confines of "Gut Feeling," "Uncontrollable Urge," "Gates of Steel," "Penetration in the Centerfold" or the dozens of others.

UCLA is among the first schools to offer recruits the option of signing their letter of intent on Wednesday electronically instead of sending in via a fax machine. Recruits will be able to sign and fill out documents via computer or mobile device using SignNow by Barracuda. "The technology provides accurate time stamps and ensures that we receive the signed contracts as soon as they are executed," said Matt Elliott, UCLA's associate athletic director for compliance. Now, instead of worrying about not having paper in a fax machine, schools will have to worry about hackers.

WASHINGTON - A Target Corp. official told a Senate committee that a massive security breach affecting up to 110 million holiday shoppers lasted three days longer than previously thought. Chief Financial Officer John Mulligan disclosed the latest information in written testimony at a hearing Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering ways to protect consumers' personal information. The malicious software that enabled hackers to steal information from credit and debit cards from Nov. 27 to Dec. 15 was later found on 25 additional checkout machines and continued to collect shoppers' information for three more days, Mulligan wrote.

Marlise Munoz is dead. Yet her body is in a hospital intensive care unit, maintained on a ventilator. Why? The 33-year-old paramedic and mother of one from Fort Worth, Texas, apparently suffered a fatal pulmonary embolism in her home Nov. 26. She was found by her husband, Erick, who is also a paramedic, unconscious on their kitchen floor. She had lain there, not breathing, for some minutes. She was taken to nearby John Peter Smith Hospital, where doctors put her on ICU technologies, including a ventilator, and restored a heartbeat.

A former junior college police officer pleaded guilty to stealing more than $250,000 from campus parking machines at a Northern California campus. Jeffrey Holzworth, 52, pleaded guilty to one count of grand theft and 11 counts of receiving stolen property after prosecutors alleged he had been stealing coins and currency at Santa Rosa Junior College during the final seven years of a 28-year law-enforcement career, according to the Press Democrat . The veteran college police officer came under suspicion when his colleagues reported seeing him with bundles of $1 and $5 bills, as well as collecting money from the machines at odd hours, the newspaper reported.

Travelers who hail a cab in New Orleans will be able to do something riders nowhere else in the country will be able to do: Slide into the back seat and buy a cold soda from a vending machine. About 250 taxis will be outfitted with a touchscreen on which customers can swipe their credit or debit card to pay 99 cents for a Coke, Diet Coke or other soft drinks, a statement from the cab company says. The taxi drink dispenser is the brainchild of Simon Garber, an immigrant from Ukraine who owns New Orleans Carriage Cab and Yellow-Checker Cab. It took four years to develop the dispenser connected to a fridge that holds 36 cans, the company said.

The merchant of death is dead: Mikhail Kalashnikov passed Monday at 94 in a hospital in Izhevsk, the capital of the Russian republic of Udmurtia. Of course you know his name; everyone knows his name . It's as famous a name as Samuel Colt, maker of the gun that won the West. Except that Kalashnikov designed the gun that has bedeviled the “other,” larger West for more than 60 years. Kalashnikov's AK-47 (“the automatic Kalashnikov” and the year it won a Soviet design competition, 1947)

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is outfitting a 647-foot cargo ship with high-tech equipment in an effort to safely destroy hundreds of tons of lethal chemical weapons agents that were collected in Syria after a deadly gas attack this summer sparked an international outcry. Two specially developed hydrolysis machines, which use water or bleach to neutralize the chemicals that produce nerve gases, have been installed aboard the Cape Ray at the U.S. naval base in Norfolk, Va., officials said Thursday.